But after lunch Bill did remark to his sister—
“I say—I don’t want a stuffed owl for a brother-in-law.”
“That’s no worse,” retorted the goaded Elizabeth, “than having a live donkey for a brother.”
Then she retired to her room, and Bill went out with a grin to exercise the dogs.
There is a theory held by many wise people that if we were all happy we should all be good and clever; but facts at present do seem rather to dispute it. For instance, Andy was undoubtedly less happy than he had ever been in his life, though he was beginning to get hold of the meaning of life, and yet he was both better and cleverer than when he was happy.
His soul was learning, awkwardly and timidly, with many mishaps, to drive his body—and that is, of course, after all, the reason of human life; when we have learned that we are ready for the next thing.
His air of sane and jolly boyishness was just the same, but strength showed through it; you saw that he might grow into one of those sane and jolly men who keep the world from going mad, but you also saw that if anything went wrong with the driving-gear he would have a bad fall.
As he sat in his study window the sunlight filled the garden with that deep radiance peculiar to an English September afternoon, and he looked out with a glance more focused, and features sharper, than on that spring day when he saw it all in a glory of gold and green. After a while he straightened his shoulders, as if banishing some insistent thought, and drew the paper towards him.
His little articles were accepted more often now, and he wrote slowly, so that a good deal of his spare time was occupied in this way. But he was learning to follow the Holy Grail of all writers, which is to find the arresting and beautiful which hides in the obvious, and those who do that seek long and never come quite close; but there is a wonder in the far glimpse they catch sometimes which makes up for years of pilgrimage.